Hi everyone,

Well what a week, WHAT A WEEK, what a week!

 

We start where I left off last week after the Ladies' Open. On Wednesday it was the Seniors' turn to have fun at the Seniors' Open. It was once again a pleasure to see so many visitors come to enjoy the very best of what we have here. The eventual winners of the day were as follows:

Winner Div 1: Graham Hoult (Oxford) - 39 points 
Runner Up: Andy Robertson - 38 points 
Winner Div 2: Julian Dawes - 39 points 
Runner Up: Andy Bartlett - 36 points

We then moved on to our Junior Open on Thursday. Due to its Jeff Hall Qualifier Status (counts towards County Order of Merit) this one is always a good fixture. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this a success, and especially to Marion Jackson who manned the fort and to Chrissie who acted as starter for the field.

The winning list is as follows: 

Gross Winner: Ryan Prosser (Knowle) 
Gross 2nd: Charlie Patterson 
1st Girls' Prize: Isabella Bleakin 
Nett 0-9 h'cap: Kobe Wesson 
Nett 10-18 h'cap: Brandon Skidmore 
Nett 19 and over h'cap: B&C's very own Harry Kennedy (Well done Harry, great job!)


We then started Friday with the Hickory Shaft Challenge. This was a fun event where old Hickory shafted clubs were used by members and visitors to play. The day was made even more wonderful by the attire worn by many participants. My own favourites were Steve Tilley and Iain Hathorn. Such a nice idea to celebrate our tradition, but we certainly won't be stocking these clubs any time soon.

  

The evening saw Paul Barrington bring his trick shot show to B&C. I have seen other trick shot shows, but although we have known Paul for a very long time, I have never seen his. Well what a laugh it was! He brought lots of people up to participate, including Jo Harrison, Chrissie Savage, Pete Betts, David Crews and our own assistant Andy McG (who got seriously ribbed for his trousers! Bless) as well as many others. I had a great evening and I think everyone else who attended did too, so well done Mr B.

  

Saturday saw the biggest field I have ever seen take on the 125th Anniversary Medal. 49 groups of 3 started from the 1st tee from 7.30am until 3.30pm - wow that's a lot of people... The winner was Alan Cowley with Richard Bromilow taking second place. Many congratulations to you.

Saturday night was quite simply a fantastic night. 150 guests came to Bristol & Clifton for the 125th Anniversary Ball, the end of a spectacular week of events to celebrate our heritage and longevity. At this stage, I have to say the Marquee looked incredible. Beautiful flower arrangements (well done Dorothy), candles, really it looked amazing inside. Brilliant job done by Jayne and her team.

We were treated to six (yep, six) courses, and I have to say each one was delicious. After dinner, Peter Simpson made a short speech to thank everyone involved and the dancing to the Dr Chocolate band started.

I will be honest, Paul and I had a blast and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Peter and Jane Bell for their most generous invitation and for everything they do to make this Golf Club the best in the South West.

I would also like to thank the others on our table, George and Andrew, Matt and Kim, Mark and Meryl and Peter and Jane, for a night of great company and most delicious wine.

Finally I would like to thanks Les and Linda - enjoy a good rest this week, you've more than earned it!

  

  

  

I am writing this on Sunday morning and feeling a little sad that it is all over but glad I was here to celebrate this special occasion with lots of you. 

Here's to the next 125...


 

This week has been so busy with club events that I prefer to focus on these this week. I will just say a big thank you to Andy McGreevy, who has always supported my inclusion work and he is an incredible coach. 

This week I threw a curve ball at him with our inclusion session - the one participant I signed up was a little blind girl called Faye. Faye's sister Frances is a new junior member here and John, their Dad, was not aware we run Inclusion groups so I talked to him about it and he agreed to bring Faye along. Faye has been blind since birth and she is only 6 years old. In advance of the session, John said Faye only has a 20 minute span of interest, so I was rather surprised that 20 minutes passed the start of the session, I did not see them coming back. Faye enjoyed it so much she stayed the whole 45 minutes of the session.

Well done Andy, you're a really awesome coach and friend.

Stay tuned next week for a great instructional from Andy and news from Paul and Peter Simpson's Captain/Pro challenge at Broadstone. 

On that note, see you next week 

Caren, Paul, Andy & Nick